On the JOIDES Resolution, the scientists and the crew have to be working every hour of every day at sea. The crew has to work every hour to keep the ship running. The scientists have to work every hour because they have a lot of cores to describe before we all leave the ship and go our separate ways. Everyone on the JR works a 12-hour shift every single day for the two months we are at sea. To give you an idea of what a typical day is like, here is a photo diary of me during one of my midnight to noon shifts.

10:34pm – I’m almost awake. My alarm goes off at 10:30pm, but it always takes me a few minutes to motivate myself to climb out of bed.

10:43pm – I go down to the gym and workout.

11:33pm – Back in my room, I took a shower and then here I am putting my laundry out for the ship stewards to pick-up and wash. It’s kind of hard for me to accumulate laundry, because I don’t actually wear clothes.

11:36pm- I go to the galley to eat my midnight breakfast. Here I am deciding whether to eat dinner or breakfast food.

Midnight- I head up to the labs to start working. This is me during my shift keeping an eye on the Whole-Round Multisensor Logger while a core runs through it. This logger uses gamma radiation (like the stuff that turned Bruce Banner into the Incredible Hulk!) to figure out how dense the rocks are.

5:30am – Some of the other staff and I take a break to go outside and watch the sunrise.

5:52am – I go to the galley to eat my brunch. Here I am deciding whether to eat lunch or breakfast food.

6:30am – I go back to work. Here I am later in the morning discussing one of the cores that just came up on deck with Joerg the staff scientist.

9:02am – I decide to take a break and go to the galley to check out the ever-full and always dangerous dessert fridge. This is why I go to the gym every day. The desserts are too yummy to resist.

12:08pm – My shift is over so I go down to the computer dungeon to email some of my friends and family back home.

12:27pm – I go to the galley for my last meal of the day. I call it linner.

1:00pm – I meet some of the other people from my shift to watch a dvd in the movie room. Here we are watching the SyFy Channel mini-series Dune. I like the version with Sting and that guy from Desperate Housewives better.

 

2:08 pm – I start nodding off during the movie, so I decide to come back to my room to read, though I usually last about three minutes before I fall asleep.

 

10:34 pm – I wake up and it starts all over again.

In some ways, working this way is kind of like that movie Groundhog Day, except with less time for self-improvement. We are doing cool and exciting work with a great group of people, though, so I love every minute!!

Sincerely,

The Blogfish